The Question Around Design Leadership

As the underlying aspect of life, design is increasingly becoming critical to modern society, but, how is design leading? And will it be left behind in building the future?

Last Fall, I attended a talk by the incredible award-winning American industrial designer, gerontologist and author Patti Moore. In addition to the key points of her robust career (which includes the 2022 World Design Medal™), what stood out to me the most, was Moore’s comment that, as designers, we need to become political. However, in a society that quite often views design as an element of beautification, not as a force for change and societal impact, following the talk, I wondered how design could become political and what being political would mean for the design industry. This thread led me to question the role of design leadership and reflect upon the current state of leadership in the design industry.

Over the last several months, the term ‘design leadership’ has noticeably, come up consistently in conversations for me- from the increasing numbers of ‘design leadership’ communities/groups forming to the discussion around what the future of design leadership will be in organisations. However, Moore’s talk brought other layers into the discourse for me, e.g., discussion around leadership within the design practice, the power it possesses and, ultimately, its genuine long-term
societal impact. 

What does ‘political’ mean for design leadership? 
Becoming political in how one leads is not only about running for office and becoming an MP, a senator or protesting on the streets. In a sense, it is looking beyond the subjective and thinking about how your practice objectively impacts the wider societal discourse long term. As a design leader, you have the power to be a part of the conversations that will shape the future, e.g., Andrew Knight, the Head of the  UK Design Policy with the Commnuntty commissioning 'Public Design Review' is aiming to ensure that “design is creating systems and services that deliver the most public value”, or, the incredible work that the Design Council is doing with their ‘Design For Planet’ strategy. With the increasingly concerning crises escalating across all aspects of society, e.g., from political to climate, design can and should play a key role in helping to solve these issues. As the iconic (and vocal) Austrian-American designer and academic, VIctor Papenak (1971) argued, design is critical to modern society as it is an underlying aspect of the human foundation. Thus, it is unsurprising that design is political as it is integral to society’s comprehensive progress. But, for the most part, the presence of design leadership in these critical conversations appears
to be limited.
Becoming more vocal
To embrace the political lense and a voice for societal impact, design should go beyond the cult of personality that appears to be ever-present in the design industry to a contextual awareness of the ecosystem as one practices design and leads; we do not all need to be that loud elevated leader that society celebrates but can embrace a quiet agency. As design leaders with the ability to shape the future, one needs to embrace this agency and the power that design possesses. 

In a recent interview with the design publication Dezeen, AirBnB co-founder Biran Chesky echoes this concerning sentiment; he sees that design needs to embrace AI and not repeat what happened in the 1990s when Design did not engage with web and ‘…gave away a lot of their power’. Though there is criticism around AirBnB and its design, the framing of this perspective is interesting to reflect on. Chesky notes that ‘…either you can be part of the change or the world can be designed without you and then you must fit into that change. And you're going to be a subordinate."

Chesky’s argument is concerning because as a society we are at a very critical juncture, design is crucial and cannot be a subordinate. Design needs to be a part of the discourse of shaping the future– for the better. As Moore said earlier this year, Imagine if we had ‘design in the Commons or in the Capital, we would not be experiencing such extreme societal issues’. But how can design lead to contribute
to shaping the future?

What is design leadership?
I found myself circling back to the question of what ‘design leadership’ really is, how it is defined, and what it stands for; I also re-visited my dissertation on ‘design leadership’. Design leadership has the potential to embrace curiosity and a committed interest in human needs and societal norms to strategically respond to contextual changes. However, having an ill-defined understanding of what design leadership encompasses or even how it appears to evolve raises concerns for me.

Echoing Chesnkey, I am concerned that design will give away its power at this point- with AI, with the climate etc. Thus, as an industry, we need to take ‘design’ and, in essence, its leadership seriously; design can support and drive the betterment of society, argued John Heskett, the pioneering British writer and lecturer on the economic, political, cultural and human value of industrial design. However, even if a design leader speaks about being more socially and environmentally conscious, their priorities can be seen as reductive, subjective and non-inclusive.  Regardless of how everything stands, I am incredibly optimistic about seeing more design leaders taking a stand and using its power, e.g. Leyal Argaralou and her recent World Design Organisation presidency run or the Creative Industry’s Alliance’s petition letter to the UK Chancellor before the Autumn Statement whose signatories included key UK design leaders. These actions hold on to the design’s ‘power’ by embracing a “political” stance around change and impact for the industry and society and, ultimately, to be a part of shaping the future. I am curious, how do you define design leadership? How can it maintain the design’s ‘power’?